Excel: Virtual Shooting Range - Sort of

This is a discussion on Excel: Virtual Shooting Range - Sort of within the Off Topic & Humor Discussion forums, part of the The Back Porch category; I came across this while trying to figure out something else. I thought it was too neat to let it go to waste and the ...

Excel: Virtual Shooting Range - Sort of

I came across this while trying to figure out something else. I thought it was too neat to let it go to waste and the only group I could think of who might have a passing interest is right here. Hopefully someone might think it's cool (I desperately crave to be cool again).

"Hi Folks, As a kid was fascinated with high power rifles, sniper rifles, cannons and in general, fast projectiles. As a kid I’ve been brainwashed with all sorts of urban legends about how far an AK 47 or a pistol can shoot or how thick a steel metal plate a bullet can penetrate at various distances. I’ve also watched some documentary about snipers and there were talking about highly bent trajectories, how much a bullet looses speed in flight and all that stuff. A lot of those questions in my mind were answered last night while making a “virtual tactical shooting range” in Excel. The nice part about this model is that it takes in consideration the aerodynamic drag with a constant Cx (drag coefficient guessed around 0.25 for a typical military bullet). You can select the shooting angle, muzzle velocity and you can also choose between eight different standard rounds whose names, weights and diameters I found on the internet: US military M193 Ball, US military M118 Special Ball, Palma Sierra MatchKing, LRBT J40 Match, Sierra MatchKing 7.62, Sierra MatchKing 8.59, LRBT J40 Match and LRBT J40 Match. Just hit “Fire” after adjusting the aforementioned parameters and you can plot the trajectory and the speed along the trajectory. The plot is auto scaled therefore the visual proportions are not accurate. You can see that a typical bullet has to climb a great deal and loose most of its speed, in order to be able to reach a target say, two miles away. This model completely changed my perspective on ballistics. Enjoy, George"